Saskatchewan Reverses Course on CWD Testing After Backlash

Saskatchewan just did a full U-turn on CWD testing (chronic wasting disease), bringing the program back for the upcoming hunting season only days after announcing it would be scrapped. The reversal came after a week of loud pushback from hunters, wildlife groups and opposition politicians.

The speed of the flip is the story. A program that was slated to die on October thirty-first is now alive again, and the minister in charge went on camera to say her government got it wrong.

How the Program Almost Disappeared

The trouble started in mid-October, when a bulletin on the province's website said the hunter-killed testing program would be eliminated at the end of the month. According to CBC News, the province pointed to low uptake from hunters and said the cut was a chance to find efficiencies.

Hunters say they were blindsided. Don Gordon, president of the Saskatchewan Trappers Association, told reporters the move could mean less hunting, because people may not want to eat meat that has not been checked.

The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation said it was stunned and demanded the program be reinstated right away. Its figures put the annual cost at roughly four hundred fifty thousand dollars, with the province covering about one hundred forty thousand and the rest coming from other sources.

Why Hunters Care So Much

CWD testing is not a flashy topic, but it touches food, tradition and public health all at once. Hunting is a big part of life across rural Saskatchewan, and plenty of families depend on harvested game to fill the freezer for winter.

Chronic wasting disease attacks the brains and nervous systems of deer, elk and moose. It was first detected in a farmed elk in Saskatchewan in 1996 and in wild deer in 2000, according to WestCentralOnline.

For hunters, a test result is a practical tool. It helps them decide whether to feed their families, or gift meat to others, from an animal they harvested. Without a province-run option, that decision becomes a guessing game.

Opposition New Democrats piled on too, warning that ending the program would leave Saskatchewan as the only jurisdiction in North America with the disease and no testing. That framing landed, and it kept the story in the headlines.

The Government Backs Down

Environment Minister Darlene Rowden announced the reversal on Thursday. As reported by SaskToday, she told reporters the message from hunters was clear and that access to testing matters.

Her words were blunt. The government recognized it made a mistake, she said, and it is sorry. That is a rare thing to hear from a provincial minister, and it is the part of this story people will remember.

The official notice on the Government of Saskatchewan site says the revised approach returns to what was used in 2025-26. That means mandatory testing in designated wildlife management zones and voluntary testing everywhere else.

What Happens Next

Here is the practical part: CWD testing stays available this fall, so hunters in designated zones still have to submit samples, and everyone else can choose to. Nothing about the rules changes from last season.

That continuity matters for wildlife managers too. Years of samples build a map of where the disease is spreading, and a gap in the data would have made that map much harder to trust. Scientists rely on steady numbers, not one-off snapshots, to spot trends early.

Hunters can keep using CWD testing by submitting eligible samples through the ministry's existing program. Samples already accepted, including those from voluntary zones, will also be tested, so nobody who dropped off a head early gets left hanging.

The reinstatement only covers the 2026-27 season, which raises an obvious question about the longer term. Funding, uptake and the province's real plans for wildlife monitoring have not been settled, and advocates will likely keep watching.

Still, this is a quick win for a pretty niche group of citizens who organized fast. Within about a week, phone calls to MLAs, public statements and media attention turned a done deal into a reversal. If you care about wildlife, food safety or just how pressure works in politics, it is a neat case study. For more, browse our Canada coverage.

The bigger lesson is about consultation. Rowden herself admitted the government should have talked to hunters before pulling the plug, and that is exactly why the decision unraveled so quickly.